Satellites
by his-braveheart
Summary: "She thinks of satellites and airplanes, and stars too heavy to hold anyone's wishes." Eight/Rose.


**Summary**: She thinks of satellites and airplanes, and stars too heavy to hold anyone's wishes. Eight/Rose.

**A/N: This idea popped into my head and just wouldn't go away. A little rewrite of the DW movie, with Rose as the companion.**

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Doctor Who.

* * *

**_Satellites_**

Sometimes, she thinks of the nights she spent staring at the sky, wishing on airplanes and satellites.

Sometimes, she thinks of the stars she never put too much stock in. "So many people wish on stars," she had preached as a child, "They must have their hands full; it's no wonder why so many people's wishes don't come true."

She wished for exotic adventures on airplanes, on satellites for mysterious strangers.

She never would have guessed those wishes would come true at the same time.

She never would have guessed.

But you know, she wouldn't have missed it. Not for the world.

* * *

The year is 2008. She finds him bleeding to death in an alley behind her favorite pub. The street beyond is loud with the usual bustle of London at night, but the only thing she hears is his breathing. Slow and ragged, and wet.

She is twenty two years old.

He is an older man, with laughter lines and eyes that don't quite fit his face. He tries to say something beyond the blood in his throat, but she can't make out anything she can really understand.

"Hold on," she says, because what else is she supposed to say, in a situation like this? "Just hold on, please. God, just –" Trembling fingers push buttons on her mobile, and she's speaking, but the words don't make sense, and the person on the other end is telling her to just stay calm, sweetheart, just stay calm. Help is on the way.

His eyes are soft when she looks, and he must know how terrifying this is for her. Fingers slippery with strange blood, she still holds on when he weaves his fingers through hers.

"What's your name?" he manages to rasp, when the ambulance arrives in a blur of red and orange.

"Rose," she tells him, softly, "Rose Tyler."

* * *

He loses consciousness in the ambulance, she hears.

He does not wake back up.

She's not quite sure why it hits her as hard as it does, since she didn't even know his name. She chalks it all up to the fact he was bleeding in her arms, his last words directed towards her.

She is questioned a little by the police, but after confirming her alibi and realizing she is nothing more than some unfortunate soul who saw something she shouldn't have, they leave her alone. She's grateful.

She walks slowly out to the street, numb, still processing, still trying to figure out how you move on from… that.

How _did_ you move on from that?

She is so caught up in her questions, she doesn't realize someone's following her until they tap her on the shoulder.

She whirls around, her body tensing and ready to fight or flee, and she frowns slightly when her eyes settle on some confused looking Darcy wannabe, staring at her like she's the answer to the secret of the universe.

"Your name was a flower," he tells her, after a beat of strange silence.

O-_kay_. Because obviously her night wasn't already emotionally draining, Fate decided to toss in some Austen nutter. Great. Just what she needed.

Her eyes narrow. "Look, buddy," she tells him up front, ready to thrash this bloke if he doesn't get a good couple hundred miles away from her, pronto. She is not in the mood. "I've had a long night, and I'm running thin on patience, so I'll tell you this once, and only once – I'm not in the mood. Bye."

She swivels on her heel, feeling emotionally drained, and bites back a sigh when she hears him scramble behind her, coming closer.

And, looking back, that's where it starts.

The rest of her life, that is.

* * *

He follows her home by getting in her taxi, and the driver must assume they're just some bickering couple, because he turns up the radio slightly and decides to ignore their following argument.

He claims he's the bloke who got shot the night before; she tells him he's bonkers, and to leave her the hell alone. It's not until he grunts in pain in front of the door to the Estate, doubled over and bleeding with some kind of medical instrument from the hospital poking out of his chest that she decides to give him the benefit of the doubt.

He crashes on her couch, and she winds up making him tea and re-evaluating all the choices she took in life to get her to this place.

Should've taken the job at Henrik's, she thinks, and walks in on him rifling through one of her bookcases.

"Dickens," he begins conversationally, his blue eyes glimmering delightedly. "You've good taste."

Despite herself, she smiles.

* * *

It is not until a party at Shareen's gone awry, a time bomb, one near-possession by some mad ex-best friend of his, and a few too many near death experiences that she manages to catch her breath.

Her ex boyfriend, Jimmy Stone, is standing beside her, terrified and woozy after being brought back from the dead.

She always knew Jimmy was easily manipulated, someone who would do anything for a quick buck or a quick shag, or both if he played his cards right. The situation with the Master was his own fault for being so greedy, and so gullible, but even she has to admit she's glad he's alive.

"You could come with me," the Doctor (and yes, that's his name; his full, proper name, thank you very much) tells her, after Jimmy leaves, giving her a warning look and little else before stumbling back to Shareen's.

"I could," she tells him, considering, looking at the blue box behind him. The one that travels in Time and Space, the one that apparently liked her, according to him.

Her eyes shot to the sky, then. The galaxy. And beyond that, the universe.

She thinks of satellites and airplanes, and stars too heavy to hold anyone's wishes.

She thinks of all the stars out there, the ones that have yet to be touched, the ones that have not yet held a single wish.

She says yes.


End file.
